“Awake in peace!”

Faith Lehane can’t hear Willow’s spell from the battlefield. She doesn’t even know where Willow is. Scratch that, she’s not even sure who’s still alive. She has one hand on the arm of a demon who’s head she’s just removed. The stench is horrific, but Faith the Vampire Slayer, Scythe in hand, is not giving up. She sees one of the Slayers get dismembered out of the corner of her eye, a soldier being used as a chew toy by some beast… It’s chaos. But part of her is revelling in it. The battle, the blood, the rage – she really wants to hit things right this second…

Inside the Seed chamber, Willow is still talking to the magical egg, the Master standing to her side, shielding his old, undead eyes from the dazzling crimson light that’s filling the room. She begs it to help her, her power immense.

Elsewhere, at the entrance just inside the crater, Buffy, blood on her face, fists and teeth clenched, gets slammed into another wall, Angel coming at her again. Her thoughts are racing, but she knows what she has to do, and that determination is keeping her going. It’s different than before. Now we can hurt each other.

As Spike makes another move towards Angel, mocking his hair in the process, he seems slightly happier: Angel has finally chosen a side, and he’s not on it – which he takes as a sign for extra hard-punching! However, Twilight is too quick for him, his hold on Angel seemingly too great, as he grabs a hold of his progeny and looks him in the eyes, crazy smile etched on his angelic face, ear-to-ear. “Spike,” he says, watching Spike’s surprise, as he starts squeezing his throat. “The sun hasn’t set yet.”

He snarls and heads for the ceiling of the cavern. He bursts through, out from the crater, over above the battle worn ruins of Sunnydale, holding Spike in his arms. “Your story ends now,” he states as Spike starts to burn, the sun high in the sky.

Buffy comes flying up between them, separating the two, telling them she preferred it when they were kissing – which Spike insists he has never mentioned. Buffy doesn’t hear him. She’s too busy thinking things out in her head – trying desperately to figure out what she can do about Twilight. I can’t process it. I’ve seen Angelus. And Angel’s attempt to be Twilight… This is neither.

As Spike goes spinning away into air, his pod emerges from the war zone, catching him through the open hatch in time for him to be only slightly singed. As Buffy and Twilight’s airborne fight brings a jet down between them, Spike thinks that it’s finally happening: Angel will finally get his girl.

The jet hits the battle field below, the explosion killing human, Slayer and demon alike. Faith sees it crash down less than five metres away from her, feels the heat of the blast on her skin. She looks up. She sees Buffy and Angel, floating, knocking each other senseless. She sees Kennedy and Andrew, trying to save soldiers from demons that they weren’t prepared for.

On the outskirts of the crater, Xander looks down at the horror, sees the smoke billowing into the sky, visible for miles around. Dawn approaches him, having had her injuries patched up. “Oh no oh no oh no…,” he mutters. Dawn asks him quietly what he’s thinking. In a quiet, barely perceived voice, he whispers words he never thought he’d say: “We’re not going to win this.”

Giles is also watching the battlefield. He’s gone to get help. He thinks back to what he told Buffy in the tunnels, how siding with the Master was not dissimilar to Dracula. “A demon already attached to this world doesn’t want this apocalypse any more than you or I, Buffy.” So he went and brought reinforcements. Demons, ones loyal to their world. As the demon army follows Giles’ commands, they start slicing their way through the enemy as Giles takes command of the Slayers that are left, starting with Leah, who’s hopelessly outnumbered.

A dragon flies towards them, and Giles yells a warning, rushing and grabbing Leah out of the way. The dragon hurls its flames, taking out several Slayers with the demons they were fighting. Nothing left but ash.

Inside the Seed chamber, Willow, shining with incandescent light, is starting to feel the power in the magicks around her. She turns to the Master, wide grin on her face, and mocks him. “Master? You’re the Master of nothing. You’re the extra-light fluffy coating around the more substantial centre of ordinary nothing. You aren’t really connected to the Seed. The Seed is soul and life and it’s amazing. It’s tied to the heart of the Earth.” She closes her eyes. “And so am I,” she states, as she vanishes. The Master is left there, still chained. “So, um, the chains? Hello?”

Outside, in the middle of fleeing the dragon, Giles is pushed aside by Leah as a giant root comes out of the ground in front of them, as tall as the clouds, and impales the dragon, killing it. Several demons look over as Willow appears, glowing green with energy. She demands everyone’s attention and has a message for the enemy. “Listen up, alien creeps. You didn’t just attack the little things that crawl on the outside of the Earth. You. Attacked. Mother.” Her powers blast several demons away, but another larger one, teeth sharp, jaw open, appears behind her in mid-air.

Twilight kicks Buffy away from him. “Your friend thinks she can win this fight. She’s missing the point.” Buffy falls to the ground, but recovers quickly, bounding back towards Twilight, but he’s gone. She doesn’t see him. With a single leap, she’s back into the air, after him. Giles watches her go.

Faith has most of the remaining Slayers behind her, Scythe still in her hand. She wants them side-by-side, and Giles comes out from the group, calling her name. She’s gathered the soldiers to help them. They’re all working together. Giles puts his hand on her shoulder. “Yes, Faith. Lead them. Kill as many demons as you can. But, I need the Scythe, for Buffy,” he asks her. She hands it over, with some hesitation, her personal feelings on the subject making the hair on the back of her neck bristle. But she gives it over willingly, and Giles races in the direction Buffy headed in.

Faith and the Slayers don’t have time to move before a demon appears and, with a strange energy erupting from him, attacks the Slayers. They start to decay and rot, melting into foul-smelling goo around her, but Faith holds on. The Slayers die around her, but she breathes in once, twice, clenches her fist and strikes out. The demon is out, but the Slayers are too. Faith’s thoughts, once again, turn to Buffy. Always to Buffy.

Elsewhere, in Rome, having made a quick magical getaway, Amy and Warren are outside in an open air restaurant, expensive food and drink around them. Amy is slightly nervous. She thinks they may have made a mistake in fleeing. Maybe they should have stuck with Buffy? Warren is incredulous! “Buffy? And Willow? Are you an idiot, Amy?”

Amy ignores the way he speaks to her. She asks him if he wants to see how all this Twilight stuff works out. And besides, they let Andrew join their team. Warren calls Andrew weak, and is about to say more when Amy also mentions that it would be nice for her to have Wiccan support in maintaining his skin. Warren gets louder, his disguise barely hiding his grim features. Amy continues her drink as he yells at her: “Willow was the one who tore it off in the first place!”

In the tunnels underneath Sunnydale, Xander walks alone, through the dark, heading for Willow and the Seed. He doesn’t realise that the Master still lurks and is watching him from the shadows…

Above ground, Willow holds her own, her power immense and off the chart. Kennedy looks up at her from the ground, once again calling her a ‘Goddess’. It’s enough to distract her, and Andrew is knocked down near her, his helmet not enough protection as a demon hits him. His jaw cracks. Kennedy races to his side.

Outside the Seed Chamber, Xander looks in. For a moment, the room is empty apart for the ethereal red glow but, without warning, Angel comes hurtling through the stone, followed by a very angry Buffy, who’s relentlessly hitting her ex – and not letting up.

Twilight actually says, “Ow,” but he has no time for levity. Talking through Angel, taunting Buffy with his host, Twilight tells her: “You created a world. You can’t turn away from it.” He strikes back at Buffy, who tries to move out of the way, but she isn’t quick enough. “You were chosen, Buffy,” he tells her, approaching the Seed, his hands outstretched.

The Master enters the chamber, striking Twilight from behind. “Chosen. That’s original.” Twilight avoids his blow, spinning quickly, his fist clenched. “Die now,” the entity says as it drives Angel’s fist straight through the Master’s head! Buffy uses the moment to thank Angel for that – and, while he’s watching the Master crumble into broken bones on the floor, kicks him in the face.

Watching, Xander doesn’t know what to do. The Slayer and the Vampire continue to fight, neither really winning or gaining any ground, the Seed feeding off their power: they’re too evenly matched. Giles emerges from behind him, Scythe in hand. Quietly, he asks Xander what he’s doing there, but Xander stammers an answer. Giles hasn’t time and tells him that there is nothing he can do here: their powers fade around the Seed, but the Scythe is fuelled by the Seed. Together, the Scythe can save them all. Xander tells him to throw the Scythe to Buffy, but Giles tells him that it’s Angel. “At the very least, she’ll hesitate. She wants to stop him. Not kill him. I can end this.” Xander looks at him, attempting to see his point. “I’m all for rash acts of nobility, but you can’t get between those two.”

Twilight kicks Buffy to one side, his foot connecting with her jaw, knocking the Slayer back. Giles has already moved, Scythe in hand. “Xander, that’s exactly where she needs me.”

He moves quickly. The Scythe hums and glows with power. Giles thinks he can feel it, vibrating in his hand. He looks at the Seed… For a minute, he just stares at it – the source of all magic, the reason the Slayers, the demons, the forces of darkness, the Watchers, all of it, exists. Why they were all moved into place. This is what powers them. And My God, it really is beautiful.

There’s a sickening crack as Twilight breaks his neck from behind. Giles doesn’t have time to scream, or even close his eyes. His body falls to the floor with a thud. The room is silent, as if time has stopped. Xander looks, from his hiding place, at the floor of the chamber. Buffy has frozen, eyes open, staring, just… staring. “Giles,” comes a sound out of her mouth. But it’s barely audible.

Twilight stands over Rupert Giles’ corpse. “When they’re all gone, you’ll understand.”

Buffy doesn’t say anything. She simply moves without a sound. She hits Twilight, but she doesn’t feel the connect. She sees him go flying backward into the wall and sees it crumble, but she’s too focused. Giles. On the floor.

She watches Twilight, Angel, whoever the Hell he is – she doesn’t care or know right this second – move from the wall and picks up her Scythe. Giles. On the floor. Tears are streaming down her face, but she says nothing. She thinks it instead.

Giles. On the floor.

No more.

She flips the Scythe around with her hands and strikes the Seed of Wonder with it. The light surrounding the Seed gets brighter and brighter, blinding, as Buffy and Twilight are both enveloped by the energy.

On the battleground, the Slayers realise something is wrong, as Willow, and the demons she was fighting, start to fall. Willow drops to the ground. The demons, all of them, are dragged through the air, some screaming, some not, as they are forcefully pushed through energy portals, which have appeared in the sky and seal shut behind them.

In Rome, Amy feels something inside her. Warren feels pain in his joints. Suddenly, the magical field holding him together collapses and Warren Mears literally squelches to the ground, nothing left but chunks at the side of the restaurant. Amy realises that the spell has gone and screams her lover’s name as she starts gathering the pieces together.

In Sunnydale, her eyes wide in horror and pain, Willow looks to the sky and sees the demons being forced out of this dimension. The Wiccan Slayers that work with Vi in New York suddenly lose their remote contact with Sunnydale.

Willow is on the ground, calling Aluwyn desperately, but there’s nothing, no way to reach her. Kennedy cradles her in her arms, but Willow is shaking, going crazy. “Where? Where did you go?”

In the Twilight dimension, Twilight walks away into nowhere and nothing.

Spike’s transport pod begins to be pulled towards the nearest portal. Spike is determined not to spend his recovery time in a Hell dimension. As he steers the pod towards safety, he notices a demon has managed to escape the portals and, knowing Buffy has at least done what she thought she had to, that’s okay with him. He commands the cockroaches to follow the demon with the pod. The transport surges after the demon in the sky: “Somebody has to stop that,” Spike says to his crew.

Willow is still screaming. The remaining few Slayers look on, as she tells Kennedy that they lost. “This is the end.”

In the chamber, the vision has come true. Buffy is on the floor, unable to stop herself shaking. She has her eyes closed, tears streaming, but still she doesn’t talk. Doesn’t make any sound. She just lies there, metres away from Giles body, trembling.

Xander steps towards her, his breath catching in his throat as he moves closer. When Angel comes out of the shadows, Xander is startled. Angel looks confused, shaking his head, now clearly himself again.

Xander looks at the cracked Seed, all it’s power, gone. He looks at Angel, who’s looking around with no idea where he is. He bends down to Buffy and doesn’t get a response. She has her arms wrapped around herself.

The Scythe is imbedded in the floor. It’s no longer whole, the metal axe cracked, the wooden handle simply gone.

Xander looks back at Buffy and gently, calls her name. She doesn’t move.